18th Century Gilt Wood Wall Mirror with Original Silver Plate

• Foliate - Decorated with leaves or leaf-like forms.
• Scrolls - Serpentine-shaped forms, used in cabinet construction and decoration for centuries. The scroll appears in legs, feet, as carving in chair brackets, chair rails and arms. The deeper and more spontaneous the carving is, the earlier the piece is likely to be. The Regency or 'Thomas Hope' scroll, used on pediments and sideboard backs, consists of two scrolls on the horizontal plane, placed back to back in a mirror image, and sometimes decorated with a variety of carved and/or applied ornament, such as shells, foliate and other motifs. Chippendale-style furniture is often distinguished by two corresponding scrolls in the form of a 'C' in the upper splat or where chair legs join the seat rail.
• Giltwood - Giltwood is used to describe a gold finish on furniture and other decorative wooden items, whereby a thin sheet of gold metal, called gold leaf, is applied to the surface for decorative purposes.
  
  Unlike gilding, where the gold leaf is applied over a coating of gesso, with giltwood the gold leaf is applied direct to the surface, or over a coat of linseed oil gold leaf adhesive.
  
  Most gold-finished mirrors will be gilded, whereas furniture with gold highlights will have the gold applied through the giltwood method.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• mirrors, wall, period, age or style
  • Georgian 173
  • overmantle 830